Memorable teachers have a rationale or teaching philosophy that guides them to develop a learning environment that has a lasting impact on many of their students. The characteristics of such a learning environment could take years to refine in the face of many obstacles and negative pressures. Your guiding vision is an essential beacon for growing as a teacher!
How does a teacher develop a durable vision of his or her teaching. You were asked to reflect on what inspired you to teach and begin working on this vision in the first weeks of EDC 430. After observing your CT's classes, you were asked to refine this vision again at the end of the Fall semester. Now that you are a more experienced classroom teacher and are preparing to compete for a science teaching position, it is a good time to reflect on your observations and experiences that occurred over the year and refine and clarify your vision by considering these questions:
What kind of teacher do you want to be? What kind of teacher do you NOT want to be?
What lasting impact do you want have on each of your students?
What are you going to strive to accomplish in your upcoming teaching position?
How will your learning environment express your beliefs about teaching?
To prepare for this task, I have assembled some of your writings and observations along with your current teaching rationale. After considering these past writings, you can refine your rationale by clicking on the little "edit" button on the right side of the last section at the bottom of this page. If it is no longer applicable, you may choose to delete or update your iBrainstorm graphic if it is still at the bottom of your rationale statement.
Teaching Inspiration
Throughout elementary school and middle school I was a very good student. Then when I got to high school my grades started slipping and for most of ninth and tenth grade I cared about everything besides my school work. Even when I was a good student though, I never liked and was never good at anything science related.Then in my eleventh grade Biology class I had a teacher named Mrs. Bose. By eleventh grade I was starting to pull my grades up on my own, with the threat of applying to college soon hanging over my head. However, Mrs. Bose made me change my thinking about science, and that is why she became my inspiration for teaching.
I think science can be a very difficult subject to learn because the text is hard to read, and there is a lot of vocabulary you have to understand before you can even think about understanding a process or concept. Mrs. Bose taught science in a way I had never experienced before. She gave short lectures from the book and gave out copies of her notes so you could follow along and not be so busy trying to write every vocab word down that you lost track of what the actual lecture was about. After lecturing Mrs. Bose followed up almost every class with a short lab or activity that made us use what we had just learned. For the first time I was not only doing well in science but enjoying it as well.
I ended up taking an optional anatomy class with Mrs. Bose my senior year. Again, I enjoyed the class and succeed in it as well. I always planned on applying to college for education but before having this teacher I planned on English being my second major. I ended up picking science because of Mrs. Bose. She took a student who hated and barely got by in science and not only taught them to like it but to excel in it as well.
Since coming to URI, I have fell even more in love with science. In fact, I think that when I eventually get my masters it will be in some science field (maybe genetics) and not education. You may be thinking that the point of this writing assignment was to write about our teaching inspirations, not our science inspirations, but for me they go hand in hand. Throughout my years here at URI I have seen so many students, especially in low income areas, that think science and math fields are out of their reach. These students remind me of myself and I want to teach them what Mrs. Bose taught me, not to love science, but to have confidence in themselves. I have no delusions about making my students fall in love with science like I did but I do want to teach students that they can do anything they set their minds to, and I want to approach learning like my teaching inspiration did, with the idea that no two students learn alike, but that all can learn.
4/5 - Kerry, you did a nice job describing your high school teacher, Mrs. Bose. I think that you could combine the first two paragraphs to create an introduction that does a nice job of setting the stage and stating the subject of your essay. Please revise!
CT's Teaching Style
During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students.
During one of my visits to North Kingstown High School, my CT was doing an activity with his team classes. Team classes are made up of students who are falling behind in reading, writing, and math skills and therefore the classes are kept very small with only about 9 students per class. This lesson was on the parts of a lab report and my CT designed an activity where the students, in groups, were to read through a college level lab report and pick out areas where they saw evidence of the scientific method being used. The students worked in groups 3, and I worked with one of the groups, my CT with another and the resource teacher with the last group.
With his team classes I have noticed that my CT takes on a stricter personality than with his other classes. The team classes take a longer time to settle down and focus so he has to be a little strict with them or they would walk all over him. It works well having three adults in the room because if one teacher sits with every group the students stay focused which leaves more time for learning instead of disciplinary actions. When the students are getting way out of control my CT handles it by taking individual trouble makers outside and speaking with them before letting them back into the classroom. I like this approach because I have observed teachers that kick students out when they are misbehaving but in my opinion that just takes time away from learning. Therefore, my personal style when it comes to discipline is similar to my CT’s because we both believe that students should be kept in the classroom unless absolutely necessary to remove them.
In his regular CP Biology class and his elective Comparative Anatomy class, my CT’s teaching style is a little different. His approach here is a little more hands off. During a lab on microscope use in his Biology class he had the students work in groups of two and we both wandered around the room checking in with the groups and providing any assistance needed. This approach would probably not work with the team classes because if a teacher was on the other side of the room the students would most likely get off topic quickly. This approach is also nice because the students get to work freely without being micromanaged and yet the teacher can still work with students on a one to one basis.
So far I have found my CT’s teaching style to be similar to how I want mine to be which is nice because it makes learning from him easy. I have found it very interesting how teaching style can vary from class to class but it appears to be very necessary. It seems that the better you know your students and your classes the better you can change your instruction style to provide the best learning environment possible in each different situation.
CT's Classroom Management
In this observation, pay attention to how your teacher manages his or her classroom. What types of disruptions, if any, occur while you're visiting? How do they set the class in motion? How do they deal with interruptions (from the outside) and disruptions (from their students)? Determine whether there are students in the classes that you will teach that are especially troublesome. Ask your CT how he or she addresses these students' needs. Reflect on your "vision" of an ideal science classroom. What classroom policies will you try to implement in YOUR classroom? How does your vision align with your teaching philosophy?
During past visits a number of disruptions have occurred. Some have been from the students while others have been from outside forces. As my CT said though, it’s a rare day in a classroom when a lesson goes exactly as planned with no disruptions.
My first day of visiting, the sophomores were taking the NECAP and the whole school was in a state of confusion. Once the schedule was finally understood by both the teachers and the students, an irregular day of classes finally began. The biggest disruption I saw that day was that first period was extra long and was finally supposed to end at 10:00. However, due to test takers who needed more time the period ended up being extended even longer until 10:45. As a teacher this can be a big issue because if you planned your lesson to end at 10:00 what to you do to extend learning for another 45 minutes that you did not plan on having? Also how do you keep the students focused when they have been in the same class for over 3 hours? I happened to be observing a teacher other than my CT at this time because he was proctoring the NECAP. This teacher handled the situation well. It turned out that the students in her class had an exam coming up so she used the extra time for an impromptu Jeopardy/review session which was both useful and yet kept the students focused. I liked how this teacher handled the situation because to have let the students just talk for the extra time would have been a waste of time. Yet to try and keep the lesson going would have been torture for the already worn out students. Therefore, the switch to a game that was both fun yet educational was a really good idea.
Also later that day due to another NECAP induced schedule mistake we ended up with two different classes in the same room. It was interesting to see how the teachers involved handled the situation. What they did was simply separate the classes to two different sides of the room and continue with their individual lessons. I did not like this strategy so much because the room got very loud and the classes were notably distracted by what the other class was doing. Both the classes were Biology classes so although they were at different points in the class I would have worked with the other teacher to come up with a common lesson we could do together. Although I realize that this is also not ideal I think the students would have gotten more out of the lesson because they would have at least been able to concentrate and focus more. A final external conflict that I saw was when my CT and another teacher both thought they had booked the computer lab for the same time and both showed up with their classes ready to use it. The teachers worked it out by saying that they would split the time which ended up working out well because it was lunch period so both classes ended up having enough time in the lab. While waiting for our turn my CT had the students work on their graphs that went with the lab reports they were going to be typing up in the computer lab. Originally my CT planned on having the students make the graphs with the computers in Excel. However, a little change like this was easy to implement and did not change the integrity of the lesson or assignment so I thought this change was good thinking on my CT’s part as he ran into this unexpected problem.
In addition to outside distractions, there are also distractions from students themselves. I spoke about this issue in my last Journal as well. My CT handles misbehaving students by asking them to step outside with him where he gives them a brief ‘lecture’ or sometimes a punishment such as detention before letting them back inside. I like this approach for two reasons. One it lets you speak to the student privately so that they are not being embarrassed in front of their classmates and can tell you more honestly what is going on with them. Also it keeps the students in the learning environment which I believe is better than kicking them out of class. For smaller student distractions my CT simply reminds the students to get back on task or moves around the room to stand closer to the misbehaving student. The team classes are more troublesome then the other classes but as I have mentioned in pervious journals my CT plans for this. He tweaks his lessons so that his approach is more hands on and he can spend more time working with groups and individuals. Therefore, this is something I will have to keep in mind when I plan my lessons for these classes.
Throughout my couple of visits at NK so far I have seen many distractions from both students and other sources. These are interesting to see because they remind me that teachers need to constantly be on their toes and ready to change gears at any moment. My vision of a good science classroom is one where the students are engaged, focused, and having fun while learning. Therefore my goal for handling distractions is to make sure that whatever spur of the moment decisions need to be made keep the integrity of the lesson. No day will ever go by completely smoothly in any classroom but as long as the teacher keeps a level head and asks themselves how they can best resolve the issue while keeping student learning as the number one priority, distractions can be made, well less distracting.
Game of School Reflection
In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester. What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements? How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes? What similarities, if any, did you see between the descriptions of American classes in the Teaching Gap and the Game of School? Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
The first thing I noticed when I read The Passionate Teacher was that it was describing my high school experience almost perfectly. I was constantly playing the Game of School (GOS) by trying to see how I could get the best grades possible with as little effort as possible. The GOS is an unspoken agreement between teachers and students to make each other’s lives as easy as possible by creating as little intellectual work for each other as possible and this needs to stop. School should be a place to learn and teach not a place to pretend to learn and pretend to teach.
In my high school I played the GOS and I could also see my teachers playing it as well. For example, I used to get a lot of homework but instead of collecting the work the teacher would simply wander around the room and check for completion. This of course meant that students could write in any old answer with little to no effort and the teacher would never know the difference. I also used to get a lot of exams that were made up entirely of multiple choice questions. This is easier for the student because they need to only recall facts not use higher level thinking skills. It is also easier for the teacher to grade than an exam made of essays and short answer questions.
When comparing the GOS when I was in high school to what I see now at my placement I see that my CT rarely engages in the game. Maybe it is because he is a fairly new teacher and graduated from URI and learned about the GOS and how to avoid it as well. In an exam he gave the other day, there was a mixture of multiple choice questions and essays. When he gives homework, it is meaningful and is always collected as well as graded and feedback is provided. I think the only time I have seen my CT play the game of school is when he gets tired of waiting for a student to answer a question and instead provides the answer for the class. Even at that though most of the time he will prompt the students, rephrase the question, or simply wait for someone to finally answer. The few times I have seen him provide an answer is probably because he needs to keep the class moving to cover material he finds more important. Therefore, I see a drastic improvement in how my CT avoids the game of school from how my own high school teachers engaged in it. I think and hope that as newer teachers fresh out of school join the workforce the GOS will continue to lessen its hold on the American education system.
On the other hand I still see plenty of students trying to play the GOS. For example, when doing in class assignments in groups there is always one member who tries to slack off and simply copy his/her group members work. As I teacher I will try to keep an eye out for this and make sure every group member has clearly defined roles so that this does not happen. I have also observed students trying to copy each other’s homework in advisory. Therefore, as a teacher I will need to make sure students work is authentic.
The Game of School is something that is prevalent in every school in America and has been for a long time. It is tempting for both the teacher and the student to play the game because it makes their lives easier. However, teachers need to remember that by playing the game they are not doing what they set out to do as teachers, facilitate learning. My teaching philosophy focuses on student engagement which is a major anti GOS element. If students are actually engaged in the lesson then they are learning and not pretending to learn. As educational practices continue to improve I believe that the amount of teachers and the amount of times teachers play the GOS will continue to dwindle. However, I think that the students will always want to play the game. Of course there will be a few students who take high school seriously buy a lot of time teenagers think that everything else going on in their life is more important. Therefore, I think that teachers need to not only take any GOS elements out of their teaching but also need to constantly be on the lookout for ways to prevent their students from playing the game.
Rules of Engagement
What are some of the rules you will try when you are a teacher full time?
How do you react to the definitions and guidelines for engaging students?
What strategies are you using to engage your students? To disengage your students?
There are actually few strict rules in my classroom. Students follow school rules such as arriving before the bell, having their planner signed to go to the lav etc. Students in my class do not have assigned seats but are aware that if they are asked to stop talking more than once to someone they choose to sit with they will be moved and/or recieve dentention. These were the classroom norms when I took over my CT's class but there are many reasons I like this atmosphere. First, it shows students that you respect them and are not treating them like children. Second, it puts responsibility onto the students and makes them more aware of their choices. Third, students know the clear consequences of misbehaving. I agreed for the most part with the blog we read. Students who are more engaged in the lesson will be less likely to break rules throughout the lesson than those who are bored and not engaged. However, I think that the definitions of non-engaging tasks is a bit off because it describes tasks that are sometimes neccessary. It is nearly impossible to have 100% of students fully engaged 100% of the time and thereful rules are still a neccessary part of the classroom even though I agree that the more engaged students are the better for behavior. To engage my students I relate material to their lives. I also try to design assignments that get students moving around and doing hands on activities which I find grabs students attention. For example, we have done a birds and beaks lab, a teddy graham lab, a dichotomous key activity that we went outside for, and a phases of the Moon / tides activity that required students to act as the Moon, Sun, and Earth and position themselves correctly for each phase of the Moon.
It sounds like your classroom has similar norms as the one Sarah E looks forward to. My 11th grade classroom had similar norms, though I'm not sure if I could pull this off in a ninth grade class. Gen Sci teachers, what do you think? You make an interesting point about having rules serving as a "backstop" when Ss aren't engaged in a particular activity. I agree that teachers often need contingencies. Your strategies for engaging students sound good. Have you tried assignments that encourage Ss autonomy, choice, or creativity? If not, these may be new dimensions for your to explore. (Sidenote: There are some typos in your post that the editor flagged. Remember that parents judge a teacher's intelligence based on the number of typos in your handouts, so be sure to kill as many errors as you can. ) - fogleman
Revise YOUR TEACHING RATIONALE BY CLICKING ON THE EDIT BUTTON BELOW
When I first applied to the University of Rhode Island to be a Secondary Education and Biology Major, I thought this meant I was going to be studying how to teach science. It turns out that over the course of my four years here I have learned that sometimes the subject you teach is the least important thing you do in the classroom. Of course the content matter is still important but when it really comes down to it I know that very few of my biology students are going to remember years down the road the exact order of steps in Mitosis. However, they might just remember that my class was when they started to appreciate science. It’s the big things like teaching your students to enjoy science that is going to stick with them throughout their lives, not the tiny details of complicated scientific processes. I believe that it is important to develop the whole child and work on their major skills, like becoming critical thinkers, and learning to read a scientific text. I want to teach my students to have confidence in themselves, especially when it comes to science. Through my experiences in the education field so far I have seen many students who give up on science because they think it is too hard. By engaging my students and teaching to every different learning style, I hope to show my students that anyone can do science. To that end I also want to show my students that everyone learns differently and that’s OK. Not everyone can open a text book, sit and read it and pass the exam. Some of us need to hear it aloud, or work with our hands to understand what is going on. My students should learn to respect themselves and their peers as individual and unique learners.
To help my students reach some of these goals, I have some goals for myself. I want to be patient and express to my students clearly what is expected of them. That does not mean I plan to spell out exactly what needs to be done for every assignment but rather that there is a certain amount of effort that I will expect at all times. I want to be someone my students feel comfortable talking to, asking questions of, and trusting. After observing many different teachers and various schools around Rhode Island, I have learned that no two teachers are exactly alike. Some are soft spoken and will wait patiently for a class to settle down, others are loud and command respect and quiet rooms by projecting their own voices. Some teachers write on overhead slides, others use a chalk board, and some simply lecture. I do not believe that there is any one correct way to teach. However I do think that there are some basic qualities that all teachers should posses. They need to be open-minded, patient, knowledgeable in their content area, enthusiastic, and respectful. Every teacher is going to go about teaching with their own style and I think that that is okay so long as they teach to every learning style and care about their subject matter and students. This semester, at my student teaching placement, I observed and learned many new things. For example, it was the first time I experienced being in a classroom for the whole school day, staying with the same students for so long, and block scheduling. I still believe in everything I wrote about above at the beginning of the semester, but I now have more to add and can only imagine that my teaching philosophy will continue to grow as my experience as a teacher grows. This semester I have worked with two team classes which are composed of students who are at least one grade level behind in their reading and writing skills. From this class I have learned that the students are smart but many of them lack confidence which leads them into bad habits such as not doing their work because they think ‘why bother I’m going to fail anyway.’ This bothers me because I know from working with them that they are more than capable of doing the work but it seems like I believe in them more than they believe in themselves. Therefore, I have learned that something called assessment for learning is much better than assessment of learning. This means that instead of using assessments to measure student learning teachers should use assessment to continue the learning process. For example, I plan on letting students revise their work if they do not earn the grade they desire. This way students learn more than if you just fail them and that’s it and also their confidence grows as they realize the kinds of grades they are capable of earning. Assessment for learning has become a major part of my teaching philosophy and I plan on using it in all my future classrooms with all my future students. I’ve also learned that even the best teachers and well thought out lessons can fail. You never know how students are going to react to certain lessons or even the mood they will be in that day which can affect a lessons outcome. Therefore, I would like to add that I want to be a flexible teacher. What I mean by this is I want to have well planned lessons but also be able to think on my feet and be flexible enough that if a lesson is going badly I can change it on the spot to better suit my students needs. If teachers are too fixed in their plans I think this can be detrimental to their students because they will not be able to change the lesson or their teaching style to better promote the objective of the lesson. Therefore, I plan on always being open minded and mindful of how my lessons are actually going and change them as I see fit, even if that means changing my plans for the day on the spot, or pushing back a test to better cover difficult material. When my students look back at what they learned in my class I want them to be able to say that yes they learned science in my classroom but more importantly they learned how to be better learners. I want my students to not only learn science but learn to like and appreciate science. My students should leave my classroom feeling that they know themselves better as learners and respect their own and their peer’s individual learning styles. Up until this semester at URI not one teacher has said okay, this is how you teach science. At first I was confused as to why no one would tell us how to teach our subject, my education and science classes seemed so separated and this bothered me. Now I know that this was done because sometimes there are more important things to teach then the subject.
As I prepare to leave my student teaching placement, graduate from college, and apply for real full-time teaching positions, I have spent some time reflecting on my teaching philosophy. These philosophies were written before I had ever taught a full class, let alone teach 3 preps and 4 classes for 14 weeks, so it seems naturally that some edits could be made to what I wrote previously. One thing that really jumped out at me as I re-read this is that I never mentioned classroom management, which is something I have learned from student teaching is essential to being a good teacher. I do not mean that you need to be strict to be a good teacher but rather that you have to have clear rules, and stick to them. With so many things going on in a classroom a teacher would quickly become frusturated if they did not know what rules were important to them and that their students understood how they were expected to act in their classroom. I have also learned that clear consequences for rule breaking need to be adhered to otherwise students will walk all over you. Therefore, if you say johnny if I hear that again you have detention and then johnny says that again, you need to give him dentention. A final thing I have learned about classroom management is that there is a lot more going on with students than meets the eye. For example, I had a student this semester who was acting up really bad in class, so his team of teachers called a parent conference, where we learned that some very serious family issues were going on at home. We developed a plan with this students mom, where she let us know when big things were happening at home so we could be aware of these things while that student was in our rooms. I believe it is just as important to find out why a student is acting out as it is to punish them for it because only if you know why a student is acting a certain way can you hope to fix it.One last thing I would like to add to my teaching philosophy is that before I actually started teaching I seemed to talk heavily about how studenst remembering my class as a place they learned to love science was more important than what details of scientific processes they remember. Why I still believe that is true in the long run, it has become clear to me that there are certain concepts students need to grasp now not only to pass a class but for more high stakes testing like the NECAP. Therefore, I would like to revise those comments to that while I still want students to learn to love science in my room I want them to do that through learning the concepts they need to know now.
I was correct when I wrote before that my teaching philosophy would grow over time. It has grown alot in just 14 short weeks of student teaching, and that is while I was working in another teachers classroom. Therefore, I fully expect my teaching philosophy to grow and become better all the time as I enter the teaching world full time.
Rationale Synthesis
Memorable teachers have a rationale or teaching philosophy that guides them to develop a learning environment that has a lasting impact on many of their students. The characteristics of such a learning environment could take years to refine in the face of many obstacles and negative pressures. Your guiding vision is an essential beacon for growing as a teacher!
How does a teacher develop a durable vision of his or her teaching. You were asked to reflect on what inspired you to teach and begin working on this vision in the first weeks of EDC 430. After observing your CT's classes, you were asked to refine this vision again at the end of the Fall semester. Now that you are a more experienced classroom teacher and are preparing to compete for a science teaching position, it is a good time to reflect on your observations and experiences that occurred over the year and refine and clarify your vision by considering these questions:
To prepare for this task, I have assembled some of your writings and observations along with your current teaching rationale. After considering these past writings, you can refine your rationale by clicking on the little "edit" button on the right side of the last section at the bottom of this page. If it is no longer applicable, you may choose to delete or update your iBrainstorm graphic if it is still at the bottom of your rationale statement.
I think science can be a very difficult subject to learn because the text is hard to read, and there is a lot of vocabulary you have to understand before you can even think about understanding a process or concept. Mrs. Bose taught science in a way I had never experienced before. She gave short lectures from the book and gave out copies of her notes so you could follow along and not be so busy trying to write every vocab word down that you lost track of what the actual lecture was about. After lecturing Mrs. Bose followed up almost every class with a short lab or activity that made us use what we had just learned. For the first time I was not only doing well in science but enjoying it as well.
I ended up taking an optional anatomy class with Mrs. Bose my senior year. Again, I enjoyed the class and succeed in it as well. I always planned on applying to college for education but before having this teacher I planned on English being my second major. I ended up picking science because of Mrs. Bose. She took a student who hated and barely got by in science and not only taught them to like it but to excel in it as well.
Since coming to URI, I have fell even more in love with science. In fact, I think that when I eventually get my masters it will be in some science field (maybe genetics) and not education. You may be thinking that the point of this writing assignment was to write about our teaching inspirations, not our science inspirations, but for me they go hand in hand. Throughout my years here at URI I have seen so many students, especially in low income areas, that think science and math fields are out of their reach. These students remind me of myself and I want to teach them what Mrs. Bose taught me, not to love science, but to have confidence in themselves. I have no delusions about making my students fall in love with science like I did but I do want to teach students that they can do anything they set their minds to, and I want to approach learning like my teaching inspiration did, with the idea that no two students learn alike, but that all can learn.
4/5 - Kerry, you did a nice job describing your high school teacher, Mrs. Bose. I think that you could combine the first two paragraphs to create an introduction that does a nice job of setting the stage and stating the subject of your essay. Please revise!
During one of my visits to North Kingstown High School, my CT was doing an activity with his team classes. Team classes are made up of students who are falling behind in reading, writing, and math skills and therefore the classes are kept very small with only about 9 students per class. This lesson was on the parts of a lab report and my CT designed an activity where the students, in groups, were to read through a college level lab report and pick out areas where they saw evidence of the scientific method being used. The students worked in groups 3, and I worked with one of the groups, my CT with another and the resource teacher with the last group.
With his team classes I have noticed that my CT takes on a stricter personality than with his other classes. The team classes take a longer time to settle down and focus so he has to be a little strict with them or they would walk all over him. It works well having three adults in the room because if one teacher sits with every group the students stay focused which leaves more time for learning instead of disciplinary actions. When the students are getting way out of control my CT handles it by taking individual trouble makers outside and speaking with them before letting them back into the classroom. I like this approach because I have observed teachers that kick students out when they are misbehaving but in my opinion that just takes time away from learning. Therefore, my personal style when it comes to discipline is similar to my CT’s because we both believe that students should be kept in the classroom unless absolutely necessary to remove them.
In his regular CP Biology class and his elective Comparative Anatomy class, my CT’s teaching style is a little different. His approach here is a little more hands off. During a lab on microscope use in his Biology class he had the students work in groups of two and we both wandered around the room checking in with the groups and providing any assistance needed. This approach would probably not work with the team classes because if a teacher was on the other side of the room the students would most likely get off topic quickly. This approach is also nice because the students get to work freely without being micromanaged and yet the teacher can still work with students on a one to one basis.
So far I have found my CT’s teaching style to be similar to how I want mine to be which is nice because it makes learning from him easy. I have found it very interesting how teaching style can vary from class to class but it appears to be very necessary. It seems that the better you know your students and your classes the better you can change your instruction style to provide the best learning environment possible in each different situation.
During past visits a number of disruptions have occurred. Some have been from the students while others have been from outside forces. As my CT said though, it’s a rare day in a classroom when a lesson goes exactly as planned with no disruptions.
My first day of visiting, the sophomores were taking the NECAP and the whole school was in a state of confusion. Once the schedule was finally understood by both the teachers and the students, an irregular day of classes finally began. The biggest disruption I saw that day was that first period was extra long and was finally supposed to end at 10:00. However, due to test takers who needed more time the period ended up being extended even longer until 10:45. As a teacher this can be a big issue because if you planned your lesson to end at 10:00 what to you do to extend learning for another 45 minutes that you did not plan on having? Also how do you keep the students focused when they have been in the same class for over 3 hours? I happened to be observing a teacher other than my CT at this time because he was proctoring the NECAP. This teacher handled the situation well. It turned out that the students in her class had an exam coming up so she used the extra time for an impromptu Jeopardy/review session which was both useful and yet kept the students focused. I liked how this teacher handled the situation because to have let the students just talk for the extra time would have been a waste of time. Yet to try and keep the lesson going would have been torture for the already worn out students. Therefore, the switch to a game that was both fun yet educational was a really good idea.
Also later that day due to another NECAP induced schedule mistake we ended up with two different classes in the same room. It was interesting to see how the teachers involved handled the situation. What they did was simply separate the classes to two different sides of the room and continue with their individual lessons. I did not like this strategy so much because the room got very loud and the classes were notably distracted by what the other class was doing. Both the classes were Biology classes so although they were at different points in the class I would have worked with the other teacher to come up with a common lesson we could do together. Although I realize that this is also not ideal I think the students would have gotten more out of the lesson because they would have at least been able to concentrate and focus more.
A final external conflict that I saw was when my CT and another teacher both thought they had booked the computer lab for the same time and both showed up with their classes ready to use it. The teachers worked it out by saying that they would split the time which ended up working out well because it was lunch period so both classes ended up having enough time in the lab. While waiting for our turn my CT had the students work on their graphs that went with the lab reports they were going to be typing up in the computer lab. Originally my CT planned on having the students make the graphs with the computers in Excel. However, a little change like this was easy to implement and did not change the integrity of the lesson or assignment so I thought this change was good thinking on my CT’s part as he ran into this unexpected problem.
In addition to outside distractions, there are also distractions from students themselves. I spoke about this issue in my last Journal as well. My CT handles misbehaving students by asking them to step outside with him where he gives them a brief ‘lecture’ or sometimes a punishment such as detention before letting them back inside. I like this approach for two reasons. One it lets you speak to the student privately so that they are not being embarrassed in front of their classmates and can tell you more honestly what is going on with them. Also it keeps the students in the learning environment which I believe is better than kicking them out of class. For smaller student distractions my CT simply reminds the students to get back on task or moves around the room to stand closer to the misbehaving student. The team classes are more troublesome then the other classes but as I have mentioned in pervious journals my CT plans for this. He tweaks his lessons so that his approach is more hands on and he can spend more time working with groups and individuals. Therefore, this is something I will have to keep in mind when I plan my lessons for these classes.
Throughout my couple of visits at NK so far I have seen many distractions from both students and other sources. These are interesting to see because they remind me that teachers need to constantly be on their toes and ready to change gears at any moment. My vision of a good science classroom is one where the students are engaged, focused, and having fun while learning. Therefore my goal for handling distractions is to make sure that whatever spur of the moment decisions need to be made keep the integrity of the lesson. No day will ever go by completely smoothly in any classroom but as long as the teacher keeps a level head and asks themselves how they can best resolve the issue while keeping student learning as the number one priority, distractions can be made, well less distracting.
The first thing I noticed when I read The Passionate Teacher was that it was describing my high school experience almost perfectly. I was constantly playing the Game of School (GOS) by trying to see how I could get the best grades possible with as little effort as possible. The GOS is an unspoken agreement between teachers and students to make each other’s lives as easy as possible by creating as little intellectual work for each other as possible and this needs to stop. School should be a place to learn and teach not a place to pretend to learn and pretend to teach.
In my high school I played the GOS and I could also see my teachers playing it as well. For example, I used to get a lot of homework but instead of collecting the work the teacher would simply wander around the room and check for completion. This of course meant that students could write in any old answer with little to no effort and the teacher would never know the difference. I also used to get a lot of exams that were made up entirely of multiple choice questions. This is easier for the student because they need to only recall facts not use higher level thinking skills. It is also easier for the teacher to grade than an exam made of essays and short answer questions.
When comparing the GOS when I was in high school to what I see now at my placement I see that my CT rarely engages in the game. Maybe it is because he is a fairly new teacher and graduated from URI and learned about the GOS and how to avoid it as well. In an exam he gave the other day, there was a mixture of multiple choice questions and essays. When he gives homework, it is meaningful and is always collected as well as graded and feedback is provided. I think the only time I have seen my CT play the game of school is when he gets tired of waiting for a student to answer a question and instead provides the answer for the class. Even at that though most of the time he will prompt the students, rephrase the question, or simply wait for someone to finally answer. The few times I have seen him provide an answer is probably because he needs to keep the class moving to cover material he finds more important. Therefore, I see a drastic improvement in how my CT avoids the game of school from how my own high school teachers engaged in it. I think and hope that as newer teachers fresh out of school join the workforce the GOS will continue to lessen its hold on the American education system.
On the other hand I still see plenty of students trying to play the GOS. For example, when doing in class assignments in groups there is always one member who tries to slack off and simply copy his/her group members work. As I teacher I will try to keep an eye out for this and make sure every group member has clearly defined roles so that this does not happen. I have also observed students trying to copy each other’s homework in advisory. Therefore, as a teacher I will need to make sure students work is authentic.
The Game of School is something that is prevalent in every school in America and has been for a long time. It is tempting for both the teacher and the student to play the game because it makes their lives easier. However, teachers need to remember that by playing the game they are not doing what they set out to do as teachers, facilitate learning. My teaching philosophy focuses on student engagement which is a major anti GOS element. If students are actually engaged in the lesson then they are learning and not pretending to learn. As educational practices continue to improve I believe that the amount of teachers and the amount of times teachers play the GOS will continue to dwindle. However, I think that the students will always want to play the game. Of course there will be a few students who take high school seriously buy a lot of time teenagers think that everything else going on in their life is more important. Therefore, I think that teachers need to not only take any GOS elements out of their teaching but also need to constantly be on the lookout for ways to prevent their students from playing the game.
There are actually few strict rules in my classroom. Students follow school rules such as arriving before the bell, having their planner signed to go to the lav etc. Students in my class do not have assigned seats but are aware that if they are asked to stop talking more than once to someone they choose to sit with they will be moved and/or recieve dentention. These were the classroom norms when I took over my CT's class but there are many reasons I like this atmosphere. First, it shows students that you respect them and are not treating them like children. Second, it puts responsibility onto the students and makes them more aware of their choices. Third, students know the clear consequences of misbehaving. I agreed for the most part with the blog we read. Students who are more engaged in the lesson will be less likely to break rules throughout the lesson than those who are bored and not engaged. However, I think that the definitions of non-engaging tasks is a bit off because it describes tasks that are sometimes neccessary. It is nearly impossible to have 100% of students fully engaged 100% of the time and thereful rules are still a neccessary part of the classroom even though I agree that the more engaged students are the better for behavior. To engage my students I relate material to their lives. I also try to design assignments that get students moving around and doing hands on activities which I find grabs students attention. For example, we have done a birds and beaks lab, a teddy graham lab, a dichotomous key activity that we went outside for, and a phases of the Moon / tides activity that required students to act as the Moon, Sun, and Earth and position themselves correctly for each phase of the Moon.
It sounds like your classroom has similar norms as the one Sarah E looks forward to. My 11th grade classroom had similar norms, though I'm not sure if I could pull this off in a ninth grade class. Gen Sci teachers, what do you think? You make an interesting point about having rules serving as a "backstop" when Ss aren't engaged in a particular activity. I agree that teachers often need contingencies. Your strategies for engaging students sound good. Have you tried assignments that encourage Ss autonomy, choice, or creativity? If not, these may be new dimensions for your to explore. (Sidenote: There are some typos in your post that the editor flagged. Remember that parents judge a teacher's intelligence based on the number of typos in your handouts, so be sure to kill as many errors as you can. ) -
Revise YOUR TEACHING RATIONALE BY CLICKING ON THE EDIT BUTTON BELOW
I believe that it is important to develop the whole child and work on their major skills, like becoming critical thinkers, and learning to read a scientific text. I want to teach my students to have confidence in themselves, especially when it comes to science. Through my experiences in the education field so far I have seen many students who give up on science because they think it is too hard. By engaging my students and teaching to every different learning style, I hope to show my students that anyone can do science. To that end I also want to show my students that everyone learns differently and that’s OK. Not everyone can open a text book, sit and read it and pass the exam. Some of us need to hear it aloud, or work with our hands to understand what is going on. My students should learn to respect themselves and their peers as individual and unique learners.
To help my students reach some of these goals, I have some goals for myself. I want to be patient and express to my students clearly what is expected of them. That does not mean I plan to spell out exactly what needs to be done for every assignment but rather that there is a certain amount of effort that I will expect at all times. I want to be someone my students feel comfortable talking to, asking questions of, and trusting. After observing many different teachers and various schools around Rhode Island, I have learned that no two teachers are exactly alike. Some are soft spoken and will wait patiently for a class to settle down, others are loud and command respect and quiet rooms by projecting their own voices. Some teachers write on overhead slides, others use a chalk board, and some simply lecture. I do not believe that there is any one correct way to teach. However I do think that there are some basic qualities that all teachers should posses. They need to be open-minded, patient, knowledgeable in their content area, enthusiastic, and respectful. Every teacher is going to go about teaching with their own style and I think that that is okay so long as they teach to every learning style and care about their subject matter and students.
This semester, at my student teaching placement, I observed and learned many new things. For example, it was the first time I experienced being in a classroom for the whole school day, staying with the same students for so long, and block scheduling. I still believe in everything I wrote about above at the beginning of the semester, but I now have more to add and can only imagine that my teaching philosophy will continue to grow as my experience as a teacher grows.
This semester I have worked with two team classes which are composed of students who are at least one grade level behind in their reading and writing skills. From this class I have learned that the students are smart but many of them lack confidence which leads them into bad habits such as not doing their work because they think ‘why bother I’m going to fail anyway.’ This bothers me because I know from working with them that they are more than capable of doing the work but it seems like I believe in them more than they believe in themselves. Therefore, I have learned that something called assessment for learning is much better than assessment of learning. This means that instead of using assessments to measure student learning teachers should use assessment to continue the learning process. For example, I plan on letting students revise their work if they do not earn the grade they desire. This way students learn more than if you just fail them and that’s it and also their confidence grows as they realize the kinds of grades they are capable of earning. Assessment for learning has become a major part of my teaching philosophy and I plan on using it in all my future classrooms with all my future students.
I’ve also learned that even the best teachers and well thought out lessons can fail. You never know how students are going to react to certain lessons or even the mood they will be in that day which can affect a lessons outcome. Therefore, I would like to add that I want to be a flexible teacher. What I mean by this is I want to have well planned lessons but also be able to think on my feet and be flexible enough that if a lesson is going badly I can change it on the spot to better suit my students needs. If teachers are too fixed in their plans I think this can be detrimental to their students because they will not be able to change the lesson or their teaching style to better promote the objective of the lesson. Therefore, I plan on always being open minded and mindful of how my lessons are actually going and change them as I see fit, even if that means changing my plans for the day on the spot, or pushing back a test to better cover difficult material.
When my students look back at what they learned in my class I want them to be able to say that yes they learned science in my classroom but more importantly they learned how to be better learners. I want my students to not only learn science but learn to like and appreciate science. My students should leave my classroom feeling that they know themselves better as learners and respect their own and their peer’s individual learning styles. Up until this semester at URI not one teacher has said okay, this is how you teach science. At first I was confused as to why no one would tell us how to teach our subject, my education and science classes seemed so separated and this bothered me. Now I know that this was done because sometimes there are more important things to teach then the subject.
As I prepare to leave my student teaching placement, graduate from college, and apply for real full-time teaching positions, I have spent some time reflecting on my teaching philosophy. These philosophies were written before I had ever taught a full class, let alone teach 3 preps and 4 classes for 14 weeks, so it seems naturally that some edits could be made to what I wrote previously. One thing that really jumped out at me as I re-read this is that I never mentioned classroom management, which is something I have learned from student teaching is essential to being a good teacher. I do not mean that you need to be strict to be a good teacher but rather that you have to have clear rules, and stick to them. With so many things going on in a classroom a teacher would quickly become frusturated if they did not know what rules were important to them and that their students understood how they were expected to act in their classroom. I have also learned that clear consequences for rule breaking need to be adhered to otherwise students will walk all over you. Therefore, if you say johnny if I hear that again you have detention and then johnny says that again, you need to give him dentention. A final thing I have learned about classroom management is that there is a lot more going on with students than meets the eye. For example, I had a student this semester who was acting up really bad in class, so his team of teachers called a parent conference, where we learned that some very serious family issues were going on at home. We developed a plan with this students mom, where she let us know when big things were happening at home so we could be aware of these things while that student was in our rooms. I believe it is just as important to find out why a student is acting out as it is to punish them for it because only if you know why a student is acting a certain way can you hope to fix it. One last thing I would like to add to my teaching philosophy is that before I actually started teaching I seemed to talk heavily about how studenst remembering my class as a place they learned to love science was more important than what details of scientific processes they remember. Why I still believe that is true in the long run, it has become clear to me that there are certain concepts students need to grasp now not only to pass a class but for more high stakes testing like the NECAP. Therefore, I would like to revise those comments to that while I still want students to learn to love science in my room I want them to do that through learning the concepts they need to know now.
I was correct when I wrote before that my teaching philosophy would grow over time. It has grown alot in just 14 short weeks of student teaching, and that is while I was working in another teachers classroom. Therefore, I fully expect my teaching philosophy to grow and become better all the time as I enter the teaching world full time.